If you can learn a great deal about people from the automobiles they purchase and drive, then I’d like to introduce you to my father, Carl E. Mueller (1906-1970). Dad was a dentist, a loving husband and father, and a respected member of his community and church. And as you will see, he didn’t hang on to his cars very long before he decided to buy a new one. Using family photos, period advertisements and car invoices, I’ll give you a look at his many purchases over four decades.

1. 1931 Oldsmobile Sedan

My father opened his dental office in 1930, so it is safe to assume that this ’31 Olds was the first car he purchased. However, I have no photos or documentation of this car, other than it being listed as a trade-in for his next automobile purchase. This picture taken from an ad for Oldsmobiles suggests what the car might have looked like.

2. 1933 Oldsmobile F-33 Sedan

This is the first of my father’s cars for which I could find an invoice. I have no photos of this car either, but you can see from the picture taken from an advertisement that the ’33 model had become a little more “modern” looking, with a sleek new front end, streamlined fenders and a little more shape to the body.

Other than the purchase date, cost of the new Olds, and what he got in trade for the ’31 sedan, the invoice doesn’t tell us much about the transaction. Note, however, that the dealer carried both Oldsmobiles and their more expensive companion car, the Viking. Vikings were produced only a couple of years while General Motors was trying to expand their line of automobiles; Buick dealers also sold the Marquette and Cadillac had the more popular LaSalle. By ’33, when Dad bought his second Olds, Vikings were no longer being assembled, so I’m not sure why the dealership continued to include them on their invoice.

The invoice also indicates that Dad was still living at home on Delamont Avenue with his mother and sisters. He moved out the following year when he married my mother, so it is likely that the happy couple were driving around in his ’33 Olds both before and after the wedding.

3. 1935 DeSoto Airflow Sedan

Five months after his marriage, my father purchased a new and radically different car. Walter Chrysler’s Airflow designs were never as popular as he had hoped, and DeSoto’s version on the shorter wheelbase was even less popular than the Chrysler Airflow. Dad switched from Oldsmobile to DeSoto, moved from his mother’s home to a rented house on Wallace Street, and motored into married life in a streamlined sedan painted “French Beige.” These were several bold moves, but one was to meet with disaster almost immediately.

Within a couple of months, and with my mother behind the wheel, the ’35 DeSoto was involved in a serious crash; while my mother was uninjured, thanks perhaps to the more rigid unibody construction of the Airflow, but the car itself took some heavy hits.

4. 1936 DeSoto Airflow Sedan

My father bought his second Airflow DeSoto just months after his first one. His second Airflow was remarkably similar to his first; he even ordered the same paint color. Notice too that he received a trade-in allowance for the repaired ’35.

There were minimal decorative changes from the ’35 to ’36 models such as grill and hood louver designs. That year’s advertisements made much of the Airflow III, but in reality this was the final year of production for this model DeSoto.

My father seemed happy, however. His wife was safe and his car had been replaced. This is the first photo I have of him with one of the automobiles he had purchased.

5. 1939 Chrysler Royal Sedan

Three years later, when my father returned to buy his next car at his local dealership, he found they no longer sold DeSotos, and he ended up with his first Chrysler. The cost of this entry-level sedan was actually lower than his DeSoto and the color was green rather than beige, but it was still aerodynamic if not as radically as the earlier Airflows. Note Dad’s change in address; in 1938 he had built a new house on the outskirts of the village which was to be his home for the rest of his life.

I have no family photos of this Chrysler, but the following advertisement shows a Royal in its all green splendor. In 1939 this certainly looked “modern.”

6. 1941 Chrysler Club Coupe Model C28

In 1941, my father bought the car that he would have to keep throughout the Second World War. It was his first coupe, and it seems stylish both in this contemporary advertisement and in the family photo of Dad smiling in front of his newest car.

What made this car special was the transmission. For 1941, Chrysler introduced the Vacamatic transmission with Fluid Drive, a fairly basic semi-automatic transmission developed to compete with the Hydramatic automatic introduced in 1940 on Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs. While cars equipped with Vacamatic still had a clutch, it was not required for normal driving. On the invoice for the Club Coupe, Fluid Drive and Vacamatic were listed as “extra equipment,” costing Dad an additional $93.50.

7. 1947 Chrysler Sedan C38

I know very little about my father’s first post-war sedan, other than that he traded it in for a new car in 1950. Chrysler began producing cars again late in 1945 as ’46 models, and these were almost identical to the ’47 model that Dad purchased. While I do not have either an invoice or a family photo of this car, ironically I remember it; as a small child, I was about eye-level to the Chrysler’s grill, a feature prominent in this ad from the period as well as my first memory of any of our family cars.

8. 1950 Buick Super Riviera Sedan – Model 52

By the time my father purchased his first Buick in January of 1951, his family had increased by a second son. After nearly two decades of Chrysler products, this switch back to General Motors cars must have seemed fairly momentous, and this relationship would continue through Buicks and Chevrolets for almost another two decades. Note also that this ’50 Buick Super was equipped with a Dynaflow transmission; Dad would never again purchase a manual transmission for the rest of his life.

While I have no family photos of this car, a period ad conveys the excitement of owning a 1950 Buick.

9. 1954 Buick Super Sedan – Model 52

I remember this car very well from my childhood. It was a Two Tone with a light blue body and a white top, and we took many trips in it. Large sections of the New York State Thruway were opened in 1954-55, and I recall Dad testing the 60 mph speed limit when the section nearest home was opened.

We also drove distances on state highways to visit relatives. I took this photo of Mom and Dad in front of their Buick after a 90 mile trip to the middle of the state to see Aunt Emmy and Uncle George. Dad looks a little worse for wear after that journey.

10. 1957 Buick Super Riviera Sedan – Model 53

Another Buick Super, but some good stories to go with the car. Note this invoice is from a dealership from a different town over 30 miles from our home. Dad was driving through Cobleskill in our ’54 Super when he passed the local Buick dealership. With the windows down, Dad heard a salesman yell to him that it was time to trade up to a new Buick. After little more than a block, Dad turned around, entered the dealership and left some time later having ordered a new car! I don’t know my mother’s reaction to all this, but I remember being in awe. Plus, this was Dad’s first hardtop, a popular style in the 1950s.

This was a big car and a big price, over a thousand dollars more expensive than our last Buick. It was, however, one of the most comfortable cars Dad ever drove, and that was important because the following year this was the car we drove across the United States. We travelled west on Route 66, visited Disneyland, saw the Grand Canyon, the works! It was a wonderful car that gave us wonderful memories. In the photo, you can see Dad sitting in the front passenger seat and your author with his arm extended out the back window.

11. 1960 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan

I’m not sure whose decision it was to spend less on our next car, but our ’60 Impala was less expensive by far. It still had automatic transmission (now referred to as Turboglide), two-tone paint, power steering and brakes, and a push-button radio, and it was a sharp-looking hardtop, but it wasn’t a Buick.

Still, my parents seemed happy with the car; I took this photo of them smiling broadly in their driveway.

12. The Last Three Cars

I have fond memories but neither invoices nor photos of my father’s last three cars:

* 1963 Chevrolet Impala Sedan – This was another big Chevy, comfortable and green. I drove it on a couple of dates, but by this time I was in college and didn’t see much of it.

* 1965 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport Coupe – With this car, Dad returned to coupe ownership, and he did it with style. This classic was white with a black vinyl top and black interior, complete with bucket seats. The first time my mother drove up to my college dorm in this car, I could not believe my eyes.

* 1969 Chrysler Newport Coupe – This was my father’s last car. If some of his previous cars handled like boats, this Newport was an aircraft carrier (and the hood looked long enough to land a plane on). After Dad died my mother drove it, and I drove it for a while after she passed away.

I think my father enjoyed his cars, but they weren’t central to his life. He liked his cars big, comfortable and fairly new, and I think he saw them primarily as family transportation. All of this makes more sense when you look at this final photograph.

Bonus Car: 1916 Studebaker Touring Car

Look at the people posing in front of this Studebaker. Seated in the front row in knickers, between his father and his brother Arthur, is my father, Carl Mueller. It was my grandfather’s Studebaker, but my father is smiling just as broadly as if he were the owner, and everyone else seems just as happy as he is. Family and friends, gathering around a car and smiling; that’s where Dad learned about what automobiles were all about when he was growing up, that is what I learned riding in my father’s cars. I hope that is an idea that everyone can pass on (along with smiles and happy memories) to future generations.

41 Comments

What a great story! Thanks for bringing it to us. Like many here I feel like I know a little something about a person from his/her automotive choices over the decades.

A couple of thoughts – your dad did what a lot of people did in the early 50s – abandoned Mother Mopar. The cars’ dowdy styling was just more than many folks were ready to accept. He must have gotten a deal on that 50, having bought it in early 1951. Unless the 51 model was late in coming, given Buick’s confused model situation in the very early 50s.

And while I am not normally a great fan of the 57 Buick, that one must have been a honey – and with air conditioning! The only Buick my father ever bought in his life was a slightly used 57 right before he got married in 1958. Within a year that Buick and Mom’s 53 Chevy were gone, replaced by a Ford Anglia and a Karmann-Ghia.

Well, not everyone…my Grandfather bought a 1951 Chrysler Windsor (his first car..first new car) with fluid drive. My Mother learned to drive on it, and my Uncle drove it almost all the way through college after my Grandfather died in 1966. Part of the reason my Grandfather bought it was apparently to help stock his store (he owned a mom and pop grocery store) for the items that weren’t delivered. The store was in an urban location on Main street in his town, he bought it to escape working at the coal mines (not soon enough..he died of miner’s asthma)…and there really wasn’t much parking near it, not every vendor apparently delivered to the store (or maybe they stopped delivering..maybe the start of supermarkets and end of family groceries?)

Anyway, I was wondering if Mr Mueller’s wife drove the car? Not to be sexist, but maybe that’s why he adopted automatic (or semi-automatic) transmissions pretty early in their availability. I mentioned that my Mother learned to drive the semi-automatic Windsor, but she really never was comfortable with a standard transmission…my Father bought his “second” cars like a VW Beetle with standard transmission (no automatic nor even semi-automatic was available on his ’59) and my Mother actually abandoned the car in frustration after trying to drive it when I was a kid. I tried to “refresh” her memory of driving standard in my car when she was going on a trip to Poland with my Uncle (she wanted to be able to back him up, as he has had some odd things happen to him on vacation that incapacitated him)…but she really never did take to it. Neither of my Grandmothers ever learned to drive (but they lived in a urban area, they either took the bus or drove with friends or husbands whenever they went somewhere beyond walking distance.

These were nice cars…both my parents families were a bit too poor to own cars until the 50’s…if they needed a vehicle they often borrowed one…and my Mother says they routinely walked places many miles away…I think that’s one thing we’re no longer used to…walking to do errands, rather than for health or recreation..since we have cars (and are paying for insurance). I’m a bit young for that, but I do remember walking places mostly with my mother when she didn’t have a car (or maybe after she abandoned my Father’s ’59 Beetle on the side of the road…though I don’t remember that myself).

As much as I love driving, I still often walk for local errands. We live about 1/2 mile from the local “downtown” (in a city of about 60,000 population) with limited free parking. Starting up my V6 4wd Tacoma and getting 8-10 mpg for a short run just seems wrong, unless I have a lot of heavy groceries and supplies to buy. Of course, our weather is good here so I don’t really have any excuse not to walk, and it certainly doesn’t hurt my fitness.

I’m a little puzzled by the invoice for the 57 Buick. It says “air conditioner radiator.” With only $400+ plus in options, it doesn’t appear the car had factory air which would have cost at least this much alone as an option in the late 50’s.

The wheel cut outs and also an anomaly in the body are from a problem with scanning the photo. The AC radiator was maybe so AC could be installed later, – hang on aftermarket ones were very common then – or maybe he was thinking he would be towing a trailer or boat some time.

As for the wheel cutouts, it looks like there was some slippage during the scan and some blurring/mis-aligning of certain areas. Those wheel openings appear to be the victim.

A quick look at hometownbuick.com gives a rundown of option prices. Air was $330. There is a listing for “Air Conditioner Radiator but question marks instead of prices. I wonder if that was air conditioning plus a heavy duty radiator all in one package.
Scratch that. I just added up all the options per the hometown buick info and get $334.55. Add in the dealer options (include painting the roof white) and whatever that air conditioner radiator was had to be in the $35-40 range by my guess. Perhaps it was just a heavy duty radiator that was mandatory with a/c, but could be had without it.

Terrific collection of photos and stories! And the invoices, of course, which I find fascinating.

One thing that surprises me is how much credit your father was given for his used car trade-ins. In the 1930s examples, this amounted to almost half the price of the newer car… seems to diminish somewhat afterwards, but it’s still a much her percentage than I would have guessed. Maybe the dealers’ profit margins on selling those used cars was less than it is today… or maybe there was simply heavy demand for used vehicles. Either way, I’m rather surprised.

The federal law requiring new cars to sport “Monroney stickers” was not enacted until 1958. Until it became effective (I believe for the 1959 model year), dealers were able to “pad” the price of the car and options without telling the buyer.

Inflating the trade-in price no doubt made the buyer feel as though he or she was getting a better deal – particularly when the final price of the new car was still somewhat of a mystery.

Your dad had some nice rides. As to the 1933 Olds invoice still advertising Viking automobiles, the invoices were likely bought in bulk and used until they were gone. The Great Depression was at about its worst and I’d bet that the Olds dealer wished he had more customers like your dad, so he wouldn’t have incured a needless expense like new invoices, and he still would have offered Viking parts and service.

Thank you for a wonderful article; it is great that you have the documentation and photos to go along with the story. My father viewed cars purely as transportation modules, something to get him back and forth to work and wherever else he needed to go. He would typically buy one of the low priced three, used of course, and then drive the vehicle until it no longer made economic sense to keep spending money on it.

The first car of my father’s that I have any memory of at all was a 1947 Plymouth purchased not long before I was born (December, 1951). This was replaced in late 1956 by a 1950 Ford, six cylinder of course. My parents didn’t actually keep the Ford that long; family legend has it that my mother got tired of shifting gears and wanted something with an automatic transmission. In any case the Ford went away in the fall of 1958, replaced by a 1954 Plymouth, complete with Powerflite transmission. The Plymouth proved to be nearly indestructible, it was replaced in the fall of 1963 by a 1960 Ford Fairlane. The Plymouth was sold to the daughter of a neighbor, a single mom who needed cheap wheels. “Mr. Belvedere” was still going strong through the early seventies, at which point it was so rusted that it was no longer safe to drive. The 1960 Ford was long gone by this time, I killed it driving to work one day in the summer of 1968.

I’m not going to list the remainder of my father’s automotive history, suffice it to say that his other vehicles were more variations on the same theme. The only new vehicle my father ever purchased was a 1985 Dodge pickup that he bought just before he retired. Needless to say he still had the truck when he passed in 2000. His health had gotten progressively worse as time went along and the truck rarely gotten driven after 1995 or so. I don’t remember the exact number but the Dodge truck only had around 70k miles when my step-mother sold it.

Great story and photographs. I can relate to the Chrysler fluid drive (Prestomatic version) and the Buick Dynaflow cars as I have many hours driving the former and many hours riding (and some unofficial driving) in the latter.

And the 1960 283 Impala that my sister had was as smooth a riding car (in my opinion) as those higher up Sloan’s ladder. Not as fast, but just as smooth.

I have always loved the idea that I developed my take on many aspects of life, especially cars, from my father and it is clear you feel the same way about your dad.

Although your father was a bit older than mine (Pop was born in ’25) they share in common with many/most drivers who came of age before the end of WWII – they couldn’t get away from that clutch pedal fast enough, even with the awful early automatic and semi-automatic transmissions.

While Baby Boomers (and later) often have a fetish for the manual transmission, those folks who started driving when manuals were the only choice wanted nothing at all to do with them.

I remember visiting my folks in the early 90s when I was driving an ’84 Ford Ranger. Pop wanted to give it a try, noting that he hadn’t driven anything with a clutch in over 40 years. He nailed it first try, of course!

I wonder if this was different in locales where imports were more common. My mom, born in 1926, was the driver in our family, and she owned only imported manual transmission cars from 1953 until she quit driving in 2010. The neighbors and family friends who owned imports, which were available with auto trans by the late ‘60’s or early ‘70’s, also stuck with the stick, as it were. I’m thinking Mercedes, Peugeot, Volvo, BMW and even Toyota Corona and Datsun 510. I’m sure that a slick-shifting all-synchro 4 speed seemed a much better choice than a 2 or 3 speed automatic sapping the already limited power, as well as taking away fuel economy. On the other hand I don’t remember riding in many stick shift American cars as a kid; even the compacts I remember riding in (Dart, Valiant, Corsair, 4 cylinder Tempest, Falcon) were all automatics.

Thanks for the enjoyable family and automotive history! Love the Schenectady connection as we have family from there and a cousin still in Niskayuna, and living in Binghamton and Vermont go by Cobleskill all the time. The auto history is also familiar as we grew up at around the same time, when getting a new car was always a major family event, especially for a young car nut! The pics and invoices were fun to see too.My own Dad was almost always a Ford man but by at the end of his life he progressed to Buicks, mostly Electras, and sadly I have photos of only a few of them, starting with a beige ’47 Ford. Thanks for the family tour; old cars, and cars in general, can be a great catalyst for family fun!

The photos of the wrinkled Air Flow Desoto are beautiful. Definitely not Brownie shots. I’m guessing they are insurance company photos, maybe with a Graflex or something. I don’t think something like that would typically end up with the owner.

Re Trading a 1957 Buick for a 1960 Impala: My guess is that you parents got tired of wrestling big barges and found the Impala more attractive than the 1960 Buick. Lower cost and better fuel economy probably were part of the decision as well. Once they got into Chevys they found out how much they enjoyed them. The white 1965 Impala sport coupe with the black interior was plenty good looking. I hope they sprung for one of the 327 engines and that you got to drive it some.

What an awesome post!! I love the family history and the pictures, plus having the invoices on so many of the cars your father bought is a real treasure. It’s also interesting to track his journey between brands, and imagining what drove those decisions (i.e. perhaps Buick being more stylish than Chrysler in 1950).

Most likely the Buick’s fully automatic transmission sealed the deal. Chrysler Corporation didn’t get around to offering a fully automatic transmission – one without a clutch – until the 1954 model year.

What a fascinating walk through history. That guy who sold him the ’57 Buick must have been some salesman, to have talked him into so many options. Going from a string of Buicks to a Chevy – that’s not what Alfred Sloan envisaged!

No, but that snazzy I960 Impala Sports Sedan hit a lot of right notes back in the day – it was like the Caprice or LTD of a few years later. It sold like gangbusters in northern IN where I grew up. Our neighbors had one just like the one pictured, same color and all. It was a 348 with Turboglide. The latter caused them a lot of grief IIRC.

Thanks for sharing this and you’re lucky to have the paperwork! My parents owned so few cars over 60 years, and when the second to the last was sold, my mom included the original invoice along with all the service records for the new owner. I should have grabbed it, but it never occurred to me it would be interesting some day. I have saved the invoices and window stickers for our last few cars but I wonder if they will get kept or even found when I move on.

Really fascinating to see how much has changed through the time. What I noticed the most is more and more dealer-incurring charges along with transportation charges in the receipts from 1950s onward.

My father vowed he would not go back to manual gearbox after driving his first car with automatic gearbox: 1971 Alfa Romeo 1750A Berlina. Living in the US made it easier to get fleet cars with automatic gearboxes as standard. He made a bad judgement call when leasing a 1984 BMW 318i with manual gearbox and was stuck with it for five years. He renewed his vow to stick with automatic only from now on…

He mightn’t have liked the gear-swapping, but years ago I drove an ’84 318i 3-speed auto, in leaded Aussie spec, and it was awfully sluggish: in US unleaded form, with a/c running, it must have been sluggishly awful.

But I’m with him and Mr Mueller otherwise, currently having a manual (at 50), and I’m over it.

What a treasure trove of photos. Amazing they still exist after all these years. And in such great condition. Thanks for posting this. The sign on the wall of the garage where the wrecked ’35 Airflow was photographed is a real time capsule. “Spark plugs cleaned while you wait. 5 cents each”.